Buy on Steam or GoG? [serious]

[Chilkoot]

Are there any real pros/cons to either distribution platform that make it desirable in relation to Kerbal specifically? I foresee myself really delving deeply into this game for the long haul, and would like to make the right choice of platform up front.

Some factors that will affect my decision:

• I game from a few different computers (desktop, laptop, windows tablet), and occasionally under OSX or Linux
  
• There are multiple kids in this house that sometimes access my steam library, or I theirs
  
• I occasionally use the Steam streaming function from my main gaming rig
  
• I expect to be quite active in community forums and possibly the modding community
  
• It is very likely that all of us in this house will participate in multiplayer when released, and I will likely host a long-term dedicated server (years) if that feature becomes available.

If you have any specific insights as to why one platform may provide an advantage over the other, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

[strask]

The main reason I prefer to buy things from GoG is the DRM-freeness of them, and that's not an issue with KSP because it has no DRM even on Steam (You can copy the game out of the steam library and run it from anywhere on your system or even another computer, without launching steam).

So beyond just supporting GoG because they are cool, I would have to say go with Steam because the updates from Squad seem to hit Steam very quickly when they release a new version, and take some time before being available on GoG. That could improve in the future though, who knows?

[orb]

The game doesn't use DRM in the game's code, so there are no cons I can see on the Steam distribution (for example you will be able to play the game on your another computer while your kids access your Steam library on another computer).

Steam streaming isn't bound to games you own on Steam, but can be used by anything launched through Steam, so even if you don't buy it on Steam you can still stream it to another computer.

If you prefer being active on the Steam community forums, then getting Steam version is better, since you can use "Screenshots", "Artwork", "Broadcasts" features, which won't be available for the game not owned on Steam.

I don't know how it's on GoG, since I've been using only manual downloads of games from there without using any client, but Steam will offer you automatic updates for new versions which will available at exact time of Squad's announcement of a new version being released, which may or may not be available at that exact time somewhere else.

While there is multiplayer in plans, I don't know if there is dedicated server or just hosted game. But since the game itself doesn't use DRM, I don't think if there was a dedicated server it would be using a DRM, either (i.e. no situation like there is currently in Savage Lands).